Saturday, December 15, 2007

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) (6 сообщений)

 rss2email.ruНа что подписаться?   |   Управление подпиской 

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)  RSS  The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
http://www.tuaw.com
другие подписчики этой ленты также читают >>

  • TUAW Tip: Turn your iPhone into a digital picture frame

    Filed under: , , , ,

    You probably thought exactly the same thing I did when I first saw Piet Jonas' tip: the iPhone as a digital picture frame? That's a pretty darn expensive digital picture frame. And his tip is pretty simple-- all he suggests is to turn off the AutoLock feature on the iPhone, thus leaving the screen on to display a slideshow. At first glance, it's not that big a deal.

    But the more I thought about it, the more genius it was. I've been pining after a Nabaztag lately, and an always-on iPhone just sitting there on the charging dock could serve exactly the same purpose-- you could have it spit out the time, constantly updated stock info, or even watch your email come in. With Piet's suggestion of webcams, the iPhone could work as a little monitor right there on your desk. And if Apple ever gets this rumored RSS reader off the ground, you could watch RSS headlines fly by on that screen. When you think of all the things you could display on an iPhone sitting in the dock, it's not a bad picture frame at all.

    Any other ideas of constantly updated information you could put on your always-on iPhone?
    Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments





  • A typing tutor for the iPhone

    Filed under: , , ,

    A while back, we reported on a study that (not only had all kinds of holes in it, but) claimed the iPhone's keyboard was two times slower than other phones. But as many commenters said, the keyboard just requires practice.

    And there's no better way to get it than to jump into a typing tutor. We've seen one before for the iPhone, but reader Travis (thanks!) sent us a tip about TypingWeb.com's free iPhone tutor (just go to their site on your iPhone, and enter some information to create an account), and I was impressed by how smoothly it worked. During the Basic test, I moved pretty quickly-- a nice 36 words per minute. But on the Advanced test, they throw all kinds of things at you (including intentionally misspelled words, so you have to dodge Apple's corrections), and I dropped down to about 16 wpm.

    Definitely worth a try. A lot of iPhone typing seems to be situation-- moving around in a car or bus, for instance, makes things a lot harder. But at least this will give you a ballpark figure of your typing prowess.
    Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments





  • A FireWire story

    Filed under: ,

    Once upon a time the Mac vs. PC debate found a kind of synecdoche in the FireWire vs. USB debate. FireWire had been invented by Apple way back in 1986 essentially to replace SCSI. USB 1.0 arrived on the scene in 1995 from Intel, Microsoft, and a few others. Somewhat ironically, however, it was the original iMac that gave USB a needed kick-start in adoption. In any case, for a while there was a clear sense that FireWire was the Mac peripheral interface in contrast with the Wintel USB, and even now FireWire 400 tends to outperform the higher-spec'ed USB 2.0 on Macs in the real world. Nonetheless, with Apple moving to Intel there has a been a notable shift in Cupertino away from the interface Apple invented (witness the USB-only iPods), and with the forthcoming USB 3.0 standard and the increasing prevalence of eSATA the future looked somewhat bleak for FireWire.

    But FireWire is not going down without a fight. The industry trade group has announced a new standard, FireWire S3200 which will use the same connectors as FireWire 800 but deliver approximately 4 times the performance. What's interesting to me is the question of whether and how far Apple will go to support the new standard. Is FireWire destined to become the bastard stepchild or will Apple once again reclaim its old standard and live happily ever after?

    [via Engadget]
    Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments


    Комментарии к сообщению:
    http://www.tuaw.com/2007/12/15/a-firewire-story/#comments



  • TUAW Tip: Getting out of Setup Assistant hell

    Filed under: , ,

    Last night, after installing the QuickTime 7.3.1 update on my Leopard machine, upon restart I was greeted with a distressing sight: the OS X Setup Assistant that's only supposed to run when you first install OS X. Furthermore, even if I completed the Setup Assistant it would just run again in a kind of permanent loop; I was caught in Setup Assistant hell! No matter how many times I restarted, the Setup Assistant would appear each time and never let me get back to my desktop.

    A little searching (on another machine) revealed that I was not alone. In fact, this was the second time this had happened to me on this machine. The first time, not knowing any better, I ended up reinstalling Leopard. This time, however, I discovered that Apple has acknowledged the problem with a Support Document. Fortunately, there is a way out of Setup Assistant hell: booting into Safe Mode.

    You do this by restarting your Mac and immediately holding down the SHIFT key when you hear the chime. Hold it until you see the rotating gear below the grey Apple on the startup screen. Release it and the computer should eventually take you to the login screen with "Safe Mode" in red. One word of caution: give the computer plenty of time. Even if it appears stuck give it a chance to work; go get a cup of coffee and come back. Anyway, once you're in Safe Mode you can now hit "restart" and things should eventually get back to normal (perhaps after some updates are installed).

    This problem seems to be a Leopard bug related to software updates. It's so disconcerting that I thought it would be a good idea to get the solution out there in case it should strike any of our dear TUAW readers.
    Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments





  • Safari Block 2 released

    Filed under: ,


    Mat posted about Safari 3 Adblock earlier this week. To me, the most impressive feature of that plug-in is its support for Adblock Plus filter subscriptions. In that same vein, SafariBlock, a program TUAW has covered in the past has received a significant update. In version 2.0, not only is the plug-in now open souce, but it is also compatible with AdBlock Plus subscriptions! It's Leopard compatibility has been improved from version 1.3.1 as well. I had some trouble getting SafariBlock 2 installed (the installer and a manual installation gave me errors), but the plug-in ended up working just fine.

    Having played around with both plug-ins, I think that they both have their pros and cons. While SafariAdblock seems to be a little bit better at distinguishing between ad and non-ad flash videos (SafariBlock automatically whites out some video windows that are actual content, even if they appear near an ad header), SafariBlock is much better at working with web forms and sites that need to launch an action in either another window or in some sort of pop-up.

    In any event, AdBlock Plus filter support has instantly transformed my Safari experience - bringing one of my favorite Firefox features to a browser that tends to be more stable on my system. Plus, SafariBlock is free - and I'm a big fan of free.

    Thanks egordin!
    Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments


    Комментарии к сообщению:
    http://www.tuaw.com/2007/12/15/safari-block-2-released/#comments



  • Java for Mac OS X 10.4, Release 6

    Filed under: ,

    Time to fire up the 'ole Software Update as Apple has just released a Java update for Mac OS X. This update will fix vulnerabilities in both server and client versions of 10.4. Apple explains that, 'A malicious webpage can remove or insert items in the keychain,' which sure doesn't sound good to us.


    If you are running Tiger client or server, you can download the update using either Software Update or by getting it at Apple's website.

    Thanks to everyone who sent this in.


    Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments







rss2email.ru       отписаться: http://www.rss2email.ru/unsubscribe.asp?c=6894&u=24004&r=484673635
управлять всей подпиской: http://www.rss2email.ru/manage.asp